STERNSTEIN, JOSEPH PHILIP

STERNSTEIN, JOSEPH PHILIP (1925– ), Conservative rabbi and Zionist leader. Sternstein graduated Brooklyn College (1944) and received his law degree from St. John's University and his rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary (1948) and a D.H.L. in 1961.

After serving as a rabbi in Glen Cove, Long Island (1948–50), Dayton, Ohio (1950–61), and New York City (Temple Ansche Chesed, 1964–69), he was appointed rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom of Roslyn Heights, New York. A prominent Zionist, he became a member of the executive of the World Union of General Zionists, and was president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) (1974–78). He was president of the American Zionist Federation and served on the presidium of the World Zionist Council. He was also a national president of the Jewish National Fund. Sternstein wrote extensively on modern Jewish and Zionist affairs and is the author of Diagnosis and Prognosis (1956), a study of American Zionism. He also wrote on The Theology of the Sfat Emet of Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Ger (1847–1905) (1961).